mounting concern that the plot found to control that epidemic. seven pm in moscow you're watching the weekly here in r.t. this sunday and use the now way syria's president bashar al assad has issued an amnesty for crimes committed during the ongoing anti-government uprising in the country according to the official state news agency it will pardon peaceful protesters those who carried on license weapons and army defectors who turned themselves in before the end of the month meanwhile pressure on that has been growing this week the ruler of kept our suggest that a military intervention should and the unrest in syria shake you've been pretty far out behind me has become the first arab leader to openly indorsed military action cats are monotheists south is an ally of the us and a strong advocate of regime change in damascus the international affairs consultant

load of the news told r.t. that out of the countries lecturing syria on democracy r.v. hypocritical. so there's clearly not what you would call a democratic leader but within the hour context he should not do was to inform the country that i'm a dad and to me he's doing i mean the end of leak proof is in the books rain the united arab emirates so do rebuke what do is do it do a few doumani of peace they are not the ones that should point a finger and whether there is an international students you would call them and said point out to me did they do this part i think i think it's each more complex than just that the results show genuine popular belief only but it is absolutely sure that there are elements from outside who are taking who abuse abusing whatever there is living among the syrian people for their own purposes that is absolutely.

well syria's longtime ally turkey is among the increasingly vocal chorus calling for president asad to step down and finally get support to the armed opposition keeping its own troops at the ready near the border as artie's where financial reports ankara might not be getting an accurate picture of what's happening inside syria. with the bloody status quo in the syrian crisis monday night three months he is growing violence may start spreading beyond the country's borders especially with his close neighboring turkey wants to close friends too but now a harsh critic of damascus. to be serious first priority should be a solution to its people and their demands are not to denounce others and sort of massacring its people we should listen to them. so to clear the gloom is a harsh critic himself but he said he's criticizing the turkish government ankara is on the side with the free syrian army and the syrian national council and military and diplomatic pieces aimed at overthrowing the regime of bashar assad it

supports a buffer zone and a humanitarian corridor which some fear could return just troops to syrian soil what does that mean according to international law it means aggression against a country it means war but any intervention would be different from the one since russia and china have made it clear no fly zone resolutions which means their own vision of players like turkey increases dramatically but from claims and korea's behavior is irresponsible and risky it has larger implications beyond the bilateral context of turkey syria as such the situation in syria must be handled with great care by all powers and unfortunately i don't see that cache. sufficiently especially on the part of our government. works with

a middle eastern studies center based in. its sponsored by the turkish foreign ministry to how it shapes policy and its opinion on syria it's clear syria is killing people. not always that's clear nobody has objectively information what is going on in syria the center specialists haven't been to syria probably between is the picture they paint for officials in ankara to be. the technology at changing you know when you look at the photographs or the videos coming from these governorates you can easily see that there is something going on that the source of these videos are often questionable so it's easy to be misled and get a false picture of what's really happening but there does. researchers from coming to firm conclusions military operations this is the last option which turkey does not want to see but this is an option that may have declared it doesn't welcome a military solution to the syrian crisis but turkey hasn't ruled it out either

plane and if game if the reason massive migration from its troubled neighbor turkey says it will have to protect its own people and marc fisher lee sees it wants peace and stability in the region its troops are ready to school on matters from the border with syria. r.t. turkey well later on r.t. we hear from the author of what's being described as a blueprint for a nonviolent revolution that our jean charles claims whether his peaceful revolution concept is a match for the arab spring in reality. the crisis in relations between iran and the west picked again this week fueled by wednesday's assassination of a top nuclear scientist in tehran iranian officials blame the murder on the u.s. and israel who want to stop its nuclear program meanwhile american and british warships are gathering in the persian gulf where you had earlier threatened to block a crucial oil lng that's amid

a pending oil embargo aimed at forcing tehran abandon the comic ambition. the cold run of tension between iran and the west is simmering. it seems the slightest increase of heat could make it boil over into an all out confrontation. but where will be that boiling point the point of no return we're getting closer and closer to war with iran the iranians are playing with fire problems in a crisis if you get where any small thing can really set it off and it doesn't quite washington that the international nuclear watchdog these arm side closely monitoring iran's nuclear activities are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon no but we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability and that's what concerns us and our red line to iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon iran's main source of livelihood its oil export is in danger the

u.s. is imposing fresh sanctions that will dramatically complicate transactions that you ran central bank iran is also close to losing europe as a customer the reason that this is happening is that this is the logical conclusion of our current strategy against iran we have sanctions in place with no diplomacy the only way that that and is to confrontation cornered by crippling sanctions iran's threatening to block the strait of hormuz a vital oil artery through which a sixth of the world's oil is should the u.s. replied by moving its test suite to the region and saying if iran goes for it they will attack thousands of u.s. troops are being deployed to israel experts say the policy of isolating iran may lead to other threats from tehran moment and the possibility that one day they will go through with their threats but washington signals that it's ready or it wants everybody to believe that it's ready could wait up we had to without using nuclear weapons ourselves take out their their nuclear capability well i certainly want

them to believe that that's the case well is that if i absolutely want them to believe that that's the. that's secretary would you add anything to that some believe it's just a war of words and neither side will go for an all out conflict considering what a disaster it will be for the whole region frankly speaking this tension is artificial it doesn't have to happen it doesn't need to exist the iranians would do themselves an enormous favor by saying less. and we would do ourselves a favor by ignoring most of it all of this i was sadly i think is connected to israel and the israeli fear of iran for rhetorical reasons more than military iran might feel cornered and therefore make drastic moves right now it's in a war of words but one bullet shot and the powder keg can blow up the question is what's going to provide that deadly spark i'm going to check our reporting from washington our team. coming up later this hour here on our t.v.

a cookbook of politics in concept than a snap election that a few filled promises and season with the common people that's the elusive recipe for peace that kazakhstan is serving up in a region simmering with the wrath. of the u.s. military optimism for afghan progress is caused by a leaked cia report painting a grammar picture of what's going on in the country suggesting nato death to bangkok the patient has hit stalemate. but first the euro struggle for survival got that much more difficult this week after a major credit rating agencies slashed credit scores of nine even a sense the downgrades handed out by standard and poor's come amid growing concerns that the euro zone's failed to rein in its runaway finances and debt france and austria were especially hard hit losing their procedures aaa status that made them a safe haven for investors the reaction from the e.u.

leaders was varied with some calling the move on justified but others accepted the decision and called for urgent action kind of as across the e.u. are now waiting for monday when global markets open to gauge how much damage has been done to unlock loans from the institute for democracy and cooperation in paris believes the euro project has reached its end the downgrading of france but not of germany obviously means that the franco german axis is no longer a ton of gold proposition what we see in the euro so there is that there's only one country calling the shots not two and that's germany there's no doubt that it will extract a terrible blow for sarkozy is the only real chance of winning the election was to show himself as a safe pair of hands to the devil you know in a crisis now it's clear that sort of france has both a crisis and the devil look you know i mean it's true that these agencies are not above reproach they've made a lot of mistakes in the past but i think that european leaders of the. completely

paranoid when they blame the ratings agencies for their problems any fool can see that there is a massive debt problem in europe and i think when the euro finally collapses as it will do surely within i would think probably the next year we will see just a this announcement downgrading of france and as having been one of the decisive moments. investment analyst patrick young says he believes the reading or well overdue. it's been deserved frankly for several years i mean the french government has been economically incontinent for the course of several decades they've lived in never neverland they have no concept of how to run a reasonable economy in terms of not spending more money than they can afford it's a disaster for mr sarkozy but then again it's been coming since the start of his presidency it's been building for twenty five years and he did nothing about it so he's just as culpable as everybody else in this issue on the future of the euro

everything is not up for grabs again it emotionally destabilizes every single aspect of the euro because we still have no leadership in the euro zone we've got situations like greece needing fourteen and a half billion euros to refund in march alone the euro sits on the precipice tragically and that's a terrible thing for all our viewers throughout the world. it's thirty minutes past the hour coming up empty promises a notorious one hundred mowbray president has marked the tenth birthday with protesters in the u.s. and great britain urging obama to keep his word and shut it down. also because of our radicals headed for the border to block serbian goods stumble on armed police get the latest from the region in about ten minutes. well it moves across kazakhstan have now closed after millions of people voted to decide the country's new part of the meant the election came a little less than a month after oil workers staged

a prolonged strike over poor pay and they clashed favorably with security forces the elections were said to take place in august but the president dissolved parliament last november and ordered an immediate vote what was welcomed by the opposition and is expected to break the country's single party system as it's not a book or of words preempting violent unrest is a priority in kazakhstan having learned disturbing lessons from the arab spring. it wasn't for the snow and to freezing temperatures. stance capital of aston i could easily be mistaken for one of the gleaming cities of the gulf a village just two decades ago it is now an oasis in the desert but it's architecture having a distinctive erotic flavor like many arab countries kazakhstan's primary sources of income are all in gas and it is that x. word that allowed this country the luxury of building its new capital city from scratch in fact kazakstan is now producing about as much oil as the lead beer was churning out prior to its civil war and the similarities and here both kazakstan

and libya have predominantly muslim populations both were considered still words of calm in their turbulent neighborhoods and both have experienced decades of rule by just one man in terms of style that's fast no short on the survivor is the exact opposite of erratic more market afy and of course he's still in power but the libyan scenario no longer seems improbable in kazakstan even to its leader some young people are fascinated with what's happening in the world right now in africa and europe but we have to explain to the new generation that blindly believes everything it's told that there are those who envy our well being the countries who are revolutions took place have gone back ten to fifteen years economically speaking the town of john knows them is rightfully called catholics tons of oil capital but it's no match for glistening asked despite producing much of the

country's hydrocarbons for decades it's been poor and neglected. the uprising in western kazakstan has smouldered since last spring but culminated in december in a weekend of clashes with police that left seventeen dead and more than one hundred injured as the protests spread to other cities. in the wake of the arab spring but it was because i stand as a semblance of democracy with several parties in parliament and some of position in media the. essence of the regime is similar to those of the arab countries that's why the first thing the authorities did when their pricing again was to switch off the mobo networks and the internet connection before the people even demanded it out loud because of the riches decided to offer political reforms the people are now going to the polls to elect a new parliament recent constitutional amendments guarantee they'll be more than one party that has been up until now the challenge now is to keep all the

good things stability prosperity. and at the same time allow the society to evolve. meanwhile their wishes have approved millions of dollars worth of programs to give the rest a cd a facelift and create new jobs but you need to use. the president's close associates appointed to oversee the turbulent region says in a few years and will make some cities in the gulf pale in comparison. come here in a few years and you won't recognize this city while the arab spring may have a nice part of protesters around the world it's also taught authorities valuable lessons on how to contain those rallies like all rulers and those that are by would much rather learn from the mistakes of others especially if they come at a price paid by gadhafi on a boycott artsy kazakstan. by just a few minutes here on our t.v.

venezuelan beat it with our washington american but you man warm the hearts and homes after a million people in the u.s. . i say reportedly this week says the u.s. military operation in afghanistan is doomed to failure it directly contradicts recent optimism expressed by the department of defense u.s. troops are said to leave the central asian country in twenty fourteen but an american think tank on peace in afghanistan believes the actual pull out or take far longer. it has been ten years that has not unified the country i said should have been it looks like there is no chance with americans to see here government standing on its feet however this could prolong americans being honest on for quite a number of years i would say and the years are unknown at this time but it looks like it's going to be a long time because the corrupt government cannot function in the way that it is

right now the fact is that there's a friction in the white house right now that some or say no basically the pentagon good military is the one that's calling up that same to know that we should not really rush in and play fast as we can. the report also says the taliban havens in neighboring pakistan are bashing nato efforts in the region but defense analyst told r.t. the document is mostly about america sifting the blame for a war it has lost basically what the americans are not trying to do is their boss the responsibility of their failures and of what imus found upon baucus done and this is also corroborated from the fact that the nato supplies that box time has blocked today in pakistan they mean the military hardware which is an invasion level hardware almost nine armored infantry divisions and their support supplies up and then i'm going to spock and baucus tom and the concern box on all me is that if

the american the broking of the drawing from of honest on the beazley limit. then why would the amount of bins need a bronze and one a one man back to the banks and almost nine ahmed in front three divisions. still to come next hour on r t a perfect recruitment for the taliban produced by and starring american troops shocking footage of u.s. marines urinating on dead afghani militants get reaction and comment in our next news bulletin or head to our web site r t v dot com. also online right now passengers onboard the luxury cruise liner which ran aground aground i should say off italy's tuscan post it was like a scene from the movie titanic if you follow the search and rescue operation around the capsized coast to come for the better online video stream at our team. bus violent clashes in romania watch over footage as frustration of sturdy and low

standards of the. this week the anniversary of the world's most controversial prison at guantanamo bay was marked by public protests on both sides of the atlantic demonstrators called on president obama to honor his election pledge and shut down the jail but critics see little chance of that happening because of a recently signed national defense authorization act allowing america to detain anyone hostile thomas wilner a lawyer for several detainees in guantanamo believes that it's politics that had obama back from closing the infamous jail comments. this is a political problem in a democracy when certain people are playing with fear the republican party is basically playing on fear to influence their constituents and in the face of that fear of the obama administration hasn't had the courage to oppose it or the courage

to get the job done other things like the economy you have seen more important but you see it's a challenge in a democracy and we need to continue to fight to have this close it's a stain on the reputation the united states is a horrible place. next hour you will bring you more international reaction to obama's broken promises putting the last british citizen held without charge in the notorious prison will mark his own decade ever present there in less than a month's time. and we're more on the wave of anger triggered by israel so paul white collar activists call it the first step towards fascism. over one hundred forty people have been arrested after members of kosovo's radical self-determination movement clashed with police five kilometers from a border crossing with serbia the activists were heading to the frontier to block goods shipment a good shipment i should say from serbia but were stopped and pepper sprayed by

police the movement's leader was among the activists belgrade has made a series of concessions to kosovo due to its ambitions to join the e.u. . or only of reports that come at the expense of ethnic serbs living in the self-proclaimed state. it's a checkpoint in northern kosovo may not look like an obvious triumph of peace but here is the same spot just two weeks ago since the summer you backed billions of trying to take control of the border between serbia and kosovo this is a minority erected barricades in response they don't recognize course of independence so in the old bailey and dominated province is still part of serbia now both sides have for a new agreed that the border will be jointly policed. anyone can now freely pass through this checkpoint when you're trumpeting this as a happy resolution that a standoff and what life here has become a lot of so once again they've given up too much for the compromise and have

received no rush owen says about the long term future of belgrade try to talk serbs in kosovo down from the barricades so it was to join the e.u. which made a peaceful solution to the border issue a precondition but despite progress on the border belgrade application for candidate status has been stalled in the latest round of talks with brussels some countries which did recognize and they feel that serbia is a weak just before they are getting the kind of as a status because why they are squeezing serbia exacta trying to achieve something more than than usually are asking the candidates. just meters from the e.u. soldiers in. our serbian militia many here have been engaged in conflict with albanians since one thousand nine hundred nine when an ethnic war divided their territory into they have been coming to this road block since july and say they will carry on despite a border deal and only for why should we be happy to see you soldiers give us

permission to use this road we never used to need permission to use it at all we do not trust the e.u. or albanians wanted it when a relative's and friends have been injured in this conflict for the past twelve years. those who gain the most from the border compromise are ordinary serbs blocked roads prevented many children from coming to school and their parents from buying even basic foodstuffs but normality is some distance away. so. there are constant warning sirens during the lessons these children are not growing up normally their lives are defined by the conflict and this is true not just for children but for all serbs have been living in kosovo for twelve years while opening the roads is a step forward the serb state as an independent kosovo they do not consider their own and that does not appear to want them remains as uncertain as ever you go girl i didn't have party kosovo. chavez is one leader that washington

almost always portrays as an enemy but i was it turns out venezuela's president may have the edge on his american counterpart because he's in a position to provide thousands of americans with heating oil they desperately need three parties were important i explained. winter morning in the south bronx in new york city outdoors the temperature is near freezing indoors. seventy seven year old alison many otis is bundled up brewing a pot of coffee and raising the heat just enough good to take the chill out of the air the retired grandmother of seven lives alone on a fixed income and each winter as federal programs continue to be slashed the struggle to afford comfort gets harder. and waving i mean all they do was raise raise raise raise and i mean it's the same dollar you get and so how far can you push it one hundred gallons of oil one hundred fifty gallons of oil is

about the. right now about close to six hundred dollars however venezuela has been stepping in to make alice's life a bit easier by delivering one hundred gallons of free heating oil each winter she is a four year beneficiary of the citgo venezuela heating oil program which provides free heating oil to five hundred thousand poor americans living in low income neighborhoods and shelters throughout the country president chavez often demonized by washington about helping monch the program in two thousand and five following hurricanes katrina and rita all i know is that he was caught and he was crying to the people of the united states and i'm sure he he he ruled differently like obama loans differently and who were we to tell these people how they should live or how i mean are they good invading our country with their not being generous to give us

what comes out of their earth at no charge so could you really have ill feelings against them. i'm thankful for it. i really am in an interview with the venezuelan newspaper el universal america's leader well sort of expressing similar sentiments of gratitude president obama recently accused the chavez government were strict ing human rights and taking frightening steps. democratic values the venezuelan leader didn't mince words walter spondon directly to his u.s. counterpart you know was a boma i feel sorry for you just toss the black communities in your country what you mean to them you're the greatest disappointment of recent years the poor people of your country you're a great disappointment to them it's time that we stopped minding everybody else's business and took care of business we have children that are graduating from college with eighty ninety one hundred thousand dollars that they have to pay back

it's dippy it's looming in them just and they can't get a job a struggle getting that much harder in the land of opportunity arena party. we have a special report on the ongoing ethnic conflict in kosovo coming your way shortly but before that a quick look at the have lines in just a moment. live

from moscow word seven thirty pm our weekly top stories there's no let up in the iran u.s. dispute over nukes and sanctions following the assassination of a top atomic researcher in tehran blamed on america and israel. a growing line of intervention supporters they mirror kept are is the first arab leader to openly call for foreign military action in syria while former ally turkey keeps its forces on standby on the border.